The DWL-610 only has an onboard antenna, and no connector for an external one. We manually add one. Little documentation about hooking a pigtail on a DLink DWL-610 exist. Based on the more widely available information to do the same for DWL-650(+) models, we try to do it on ours.

The case is openned by first removing the metal plates making the case.

The easiest to do so is to slide a knife in the gap on the sides. The plates are interlocked, but it only take a small lever effect to take one out of the other's rail.

By means of the same knife, the back of the antenna case can be extracted.

The final bit of the case can then be removed.

The DWL-610 has two internal antennas. Unfortunately, it doesn't have any connector to hook up an external one. Things will get dirty…

The pigtail will be installed in place of the first antenna (the one without the resistor). To avoid interferences, it seems — according to various other sources — that the actual on-board antenna has to be disconnected. This is done by cutting off both connections to the rest of the board.

Two connections points have to be cleared for the pigtail, one on the antenna line and the other on the groundplate.

The pigtail had an UF.L connector, which wasn't really useful. It's been cut off. The coax cable of the pigtail then has to be prepared to be soldered. The line and ground first have to be separated, which may not be as easy as it sounds as the ground was platted around the line in two separate layers, and everything is quite small.

The two cables are then affixed to the board. It is important to make sure there is no contact between both. It seems that, to direct current, both sides of the antenna are connected to the ground of the board, so a continuity tester is not of much help here…

As the cable is dangling a bit too dangerously, it threatens to pull on the board and risks disconneting over time. The cable will be secured with a snaplock. It is necessary to create some holes where the now useless on-board antenna is to support the lock.

The pigtail now being properly secured, the board can be put back into its case. Due to the modifications, though, the case has to be adapted a bit.

After closing the case, the card looks quite clean.

The antenna can now be installed in muDrublic.

Time to test whether it works.

No antenna at the end of the pigtail, case open:

$ ifconfig -M rtw0
rtw0: flags=8822<BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        lladdr 00:0f:3d:cf:cb:e8
        media: IEEE802.11 autoselect (none)
        ieee80211: nwid ""
                nwid Livebox-7DDF chan 6 bssid 00:18:e7:4e:e8:ae 127dB 54M privacy,short_preamble,short_slottime
                nwid Livebox-40d6 chan 10 bssid 00:1a:6b:10:87:92 127dB 54M privacy,short_slottime
                nwid "" chan 7 bssid 00:1f:9f:e6:fc:d5 0dB 11M
                nwid freebox_TOZ chan 11 bssid 4e:08:d3:c4:21:24 127dB 54M privacy
                nwid "" chan 11 bssid 4e:08:d3:c4:21:25 127dB 54M privacy
                nwid FreeWifi chan 11 bssid 4e:08:d3:c4:21:26 126dB 54M
                nwid freephonie chan 11 bssid 4e:08:d3:c4:21:27 127dB 54M privacy
        inet6 fe80::20f:3dff:fecf:cbe8%rtw0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x8

Adding the antenna:

$ ifconfig -M rtw0
rtw0: flags=8822<BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        lladdr 00:0f:3d:cf:cb:e8
        media: IEEE802.11 autoselect (none)
        ieee80211: nwid ""
                nwid Livebox-7DDF chan 6 bssid 00:18:e7:4e:e8:ae 126dB 54M privacy,short_preamble,short_slottime
                nwid TELE2BOX_243F chan 8 bssid 00:1a:2a:d2:42:90 127dB 54M privacy,short_preamble,short_slottime
                nwid Livebox-40d6 chan 10 bssid 00:1a:6b:10:87:92 127dB 54M privacy,short_slottime
                nwid Bbox-1A440F chan 6 bssid 00:1f:9f:e6:fc:d5 127dB 54M privacy,short_slottime
                nwid DartyBox_52DA chan 6 bssid 00:22:3f:b6:87:3e 127dB 54M privacy,short_slottime
                nwid freebox_TOZ chan 11 bssid 4e:08:d3:c4:21:24 127dB 54M privacy
                nwid "" chan 11 bssid 4e:08:d3:c4:21:25 127dB 54M privacy
                nwid FreeWifi chan 11 bssid 4e:08:d3:c4:21:26 127dB 54M
                nwid freephonie chan 11 bssid 4e:08:d3:c4:21:27 127dB 54M privacy
                nwid "" chan 11 bssid 52:25:08:02:82:2c 0dB 11M
                nwid "" chan 11 bssid 52:25:08:02:82:2d 0dB 11M
                nwid "" chan 11 bssid 52:25:08:02:82:2e 0dB 11M
                nwid "" chan 11 bssid 52:25:08:02:82:2f 0dB 11M
                nwid paroisse chan 1 bssid 7a:27:d2:27:e6:b4 126dB 54M privacy,short_slottime
                nwid "" chan 1 bssid 7a:27:d2:27:e6:b5 127dB 54M privacy,short_slottime
                nwid FreeWifi chan 1 bssid 7a:27:d2:27:e6:b6 127dB 54M short_slottime
                nwid freephonie chan 1 bssid 7a:27:d2:27:e6:b7 127dB 54M privacy,short_slottime
                nwid FreeboxPower chan 1 bssid d2:ee:1d:c2:70:5c 127dB 54M privacy,short_slottime
                nwid "" chan 1 bssid d2:ee:1d:c2:70:5d 127dB 54M privacy,short_slottime
                nwid FreeWifi chan 1 bssid d2:ee:1d:c2:70:5e 127dB 54M short_slottime
                nwid freephonie chan 1 bssid d2:ee:1d:c2:70:5f 127dB 54M privacy,short_slottime
        inet6 fe80::20f:3dff:fecf:cbe8%rtw0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x8

Case closed, removing the antenna:

$ ifconfig -M rtw0
rtw0: flags=8822<BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        lladdr 00:0f:3d:cf:cb:e8
        media: IEEE802.11 autoselect (none)
        ieee80211: nwid ""
                nwid Livebox-7DDF chan 6 bssid 00:18:e7:4e:e8:ae 127dB 54M privacy,short_preamble,short_slottime
                nwid Livebox-40d6 chan 10 bssid 00:1a:6b:10:87:92 127dB 54M privacy,short_slottime
        inet6 fe80::20f:3dff:fecf:cbe8%rtw0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x8

Normal setup, case closed with the antenna on:

$ ifconfig -M rtw0
rtw0: flags=8822<BROADCAST,NOTRAILERS,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        lladdr 00:0f:3d:cf:cb:e8
        media: IEEE802.11 autoselect (none)
        ieee80211: nwid ""
                nwid Livebox-7DDF chan 6 bssid 00:18:e7:4e:e8:ae 127dB 54M privacy,short_preamble,short_slottime
                nwid TELE2BOX_243F chan 8 bssid 00:1a:2a:d2:42:90 127dB 54M privacy,short_preamble,short_slottime
                nwid Livebox-40d6 chan 10 bssid 00:1a:6b:10:87:92 127dB 54M privacy,short_slottime
                nwid Bbox-1A440F chan 6 bssid 00:1f:9f:e6:fc:d5 127dB 54M privacy,short_slottime
                nwid DartyBox_52DA chan 6 bssid 00:22:3f:b6:87:3e 127dB 54M privacy,short_slottime
                nwid "" chan 11 bssid 4e:08:d3:c4:21:25 127dB 54M privacy
                nwid freephonie chan 11 bssid 4e:08:d3:c4:21:27 127dB 54M privacy
                nwid "" chan 11 bssid 52:25:08:02:82:2c 0dB 11M
                nwid "" chan 11 bssid 52:25:08:02:82:2d 0dB 11M
                nwid "" chan 11 bssid 52:25:08:02:82:2e 0dB 11M
                nwid "" chan 11 bssid 52:25:08:02:82:2f 0dB 11M
                nwid paroisse chan 1 bssid 7a:27:d2:27:e6:b4 127dB 54M privacy,short_slottime
                nwid "" chan 1 bssid 7a:27:d2:27:e6:b5 127dB 54M privacy,short_slottime
                nwid FreeWifi chan 1 bssid 7a:27:d2:27:e6:b6 127dB 54M short_slottime
                nwid freephonie chan 1 bssid 7a:27:d2:27:e6:b7 127dB 54M privacy,short_slottime
                nwid "" chan 5 bssid e6:86:c0:13:3d:1c 126dB 54M privacy,short_slottime
                nwid "" chan 5 bssid e6:86:c0:13:3d:1d 126dB 54M privacy,short_slottime
                nwid FreeWifi chan 5 bssid e6:86:c0:13:3d:1e 127dB 54M short_slottime
                nwid freephonie chan 5 bssid e6:86:c0:13:3d:1f 127dB 54M privacy,short_slottime
        inet6 fe80::20f:3dff:fecf:cbe8%rtw0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x8